("Mainichi Shimbun", March 16, 2000)

Prosecutors reportedly are determined that disgraced former Life Space cult guru Koji Takahashi will face legal wrath of Biblical proportions over the death of a cultist undergoing the guru's "treatment."
The doomed member, former company employee Shinichi Kobayashi, 66, was receiving treatment at a Hyogo Prefecture hospital after collapsing from a cerebral hemorrhage in June last year.
Disregarding a hospital order that the patient not be moved, Takahashi, 61, instructed Kobayashi's son, Kenji, 31, to take the patient out of the hospital so he could be treated with the guru's "Shakty Pad" method - for a fee of several million yen.
The treatment was not a success as Kobayashi's mummified corpse was found last November in a Narita hotel room.
Legal experts hailed the Chiba District Public Prosecutors Office's decision to charge Takahashi with murdering Kobayashi as reasonable even though the guru apparently didn't intend to kill the man.
"(Prosecutors) can charge Takahashi with murder resulting from willful negligence if they believe that he, while knowing (taking Kobayashi out of the hospital) could kill him, instructed cult members to do so," said Yasumasa Shimomura, a criminal law expert and professor emeritus at Chuo University.
"I think prosecutors will insist that Takahashi, based on generally accepted ideas and his experiences, must have foreseen the possibility of (Kobayashi's) death."
The prosecutors' decision to indict the former Life Space guru would be a step forward for law enforcers who have to tackle a rising tide of crimes committed by cults, Shimomura said.
A former top prosecutor at the Sapporo High Public Prosecutors Office, Michio Sato, echoes Shimomura's comments.
"The indictment of Takahashi for murder is the right decision because, based on common sense, it is obvious that Takahashi's instruction (to take the man out of hospital for Shakty Pad treatment) led to the man's death," he said.
Prosecutors charged only Takahashi with murder and accused Kenji Kobayashi of failing to properly protect his father.
They insist that Kenji Kobayashi took his father out of the hospital only because he wanted to rescue him while Takahashi instructed the son to do so in an apparent bid to maintain his dignity as guru.
"We have found no intention of killing (his father) in Kenji Kobayashi who just tried to rescue his father, but found conscious negligence in Takahashi who might not have cared whether or not Kobayashi died," said prosecutor Shigenori Ishiguro.
Eight other members of Life Space were arrested in the case, but were released on Tuesday without being indicted.
Asked why they indicted only Kenji, the prosecutors said that he played a leading role in taking his father out of the hospital and failed to properly protect the man from Takahashi's unfounded Shakty Pad treatment.
Takahashi allegedly told Kenji Kobayashi that the hospital's method of intravenous drip injections for his father was risky.
"If he keeps staying at the hospital, he will be a plaything of the hospital," Takahashi reportedly told Kobayashi's son.
Takahashi, investigators say, received several million yen from the Kobayashi family for the Shakty Pad treatment, in which Takahashi was to use his spiritual skill to cure Kobayashi,
His family - also cult members - seemed to have faith in the guru as they insisted that Kobayashi was still alive when hotel staff called police over odors coming from the Narita hotel room.

("Asahi Shimbun", March 15, 2000)

CHIBA-Prosecutors on Tuesday indicted Koji Kobayashi, the founder of the Life Space self-enlightenment group, on a charge of murder in connection with the death of a man whose mummified body was found at a hotel in Narita.
Prosecutors said Takahashi, 61, instructed followers to remove Shinichi Kobayashi from a hospital last July against doctors' orders. Kobayashi, then 66, had been hospitalized for a cerebral hemorrhage.
Prosecutors applied a murder charge because they apparently determined that Takahashi was aware that Kobayashi could die if removed from the hospital.
Kobayashi's body was found at the hotel in November.
Prosecutors also indicted Kobayashi's 31-year-old son, Kenji, on charges of abandoning his responsibility to protect his father.
Eight other Life Space members who were arrested in the case were .
According to the indictment, Takahashi ordered Kenji and other members to remove Shinichi from a hospital in Itami, Hyogo Prefecture, against doctor's orders at around 5 a.m. on July 2.
Shinichi was taken to the Narita hotel where he was given no fluid or proper medical treatment.
Instead, Takahashi and the followers applied the ``Shakty Pat'' therapy, which consisted of continuous pats on the head, prosecutors said.

("Mainichi Shimbun", March 15, 2000)

CHIBA - Life Space cult leader Koji Takahashi was indicted Tuesday on charges of murdering a 66-year-old man whose mummified body was found in a Narita hotel in Chiba Prefecture last November.
Prosecutors indicted Takahashi, 61, in connection with the death of Shinichi Kobayashi, a former company employee.
Of the nine other cult members arrested last month in connection with the case, Kenji Kobayashi, the eldest son of the victim, was indicted on charges of failing to properly protect his father while the other eight were released.
In late June last year, Shinichi collapsed due to a cerebral hemorrhage at his home in Kawanishi, Hyogo Prefecture. He was later taken to a hospital in nearby Itami.
Prosecutors allege that on July 2, Kenji forcibly took his father to the hotel in Narita, disregarding hospital orders that the patient not be moved. Kenji knew his father could die if removed from the hospital, according to the indictment.

(Reuters, March 14, 2000)

(Kyodo News Service, March 14, 2000)

("Mainichi Shimbun" , March 3, 2000)

A group of people who have quit the Life Space cult requested on Thursday that the Japan Federation of Bar Associations investigate how children of the cult's members are treated.
The group of former Life Space members said that the rights of cult members' children may be violated because they are often not allowed to attend school. They added that many families belonging to Life Space may be in financial trouble because they spend so much money at the cult's seminars.
The group reported several serious cases to the bar association's human-rights committee that where children were forced to take care of a mummified body as "training."
"The children are highly likely to face serious, life-threatening incidents in certain circumstances," a former member of the group claimed.

(Kyodo News Service, March 2, 2000)

(Editorial, "Mainichi Shimbun", February 23, 2000)

The leaders of the Life Space and Kaeda-juku cults both claim to have supernatural healing powers. On Feb. 22, both men and their followers were arrested on charges that they allowed people under their care to die. Both cases involved therapy on mummified victims.
Ever since the AUM Shinrikyo cult was implicated in the sarin gassing of the Tokyo subway five years ago, a string of strange incidents involving religious groups have made the headlines. Religious cults began to proliferate from the 1980s, a decade of soaring land prices and a burgeoning financial bubble, paralleling the booming interest in supernatural phenomena. The financial bubble burst at the end of the 1980s, and ushered in a decade of malaise. To attract more adherents, some religious leaders began to claim mystical and supernatural powers that could help people overcome their sense of powerlessness.
Koji Takahashi, the former leader of the Life Space cult who was arrested by Chiba Prefectural Police on Tuesday, founded his group in 1983 to offer self-enlightenment seminars. Later, he began to position himself as a religious guru and disciple of an Indian philosopher and put a new emphasis on religion. Junichiro Higashi, the leader of the Kaeda-juku, established his group in 1995.
Why are these enigmatic individuals attracting large numbers of followers today? Most people would like to believe that they would never be duped by such individuals. But our society remains vulnerable to the appeal of religious leaders who may come along in the future with spurious claims of supernatural powers. So we should formulate policies to fight such cults with an awareness of our society's vulnerability.
The police investigation of the Life Space group took considerable time. Police had discovered the mummified body of a 66-year-old man in a hotel room in Narita, Chiba Prefecture, last November. The victim had been hospitalized in Hyogo Prefecture for a brain hemorrhage until last July. Against the wishes of doctors, the man's oldest son and other relatives helped remove him from the hospital and brought him to Chiba. The police first raided the group's premises last December, but three months elapsed before they were able to take action against group leader Takahashi.
The family members believed that Takahashi could cure the man with "Shakty Pat" therapy. But Chiba Prefectural Police concluded that the man's oldest son and others concerned with his care were aware that the victim's life would be endangered if he were taken to a hotel without medical facilities, and have decided that there is enough evidence to charge them with letting the sick man die. But the police will need to gather additional evidence to build a stronger case.
As society undergoes dramatic transformations, we should expect to encounter more of these unusual cases. If the police insist on conducting their investigations with traditional methods, however, they will continue to make mistakes. Investigations of crimes committed by religious groups require the services of officials with proficient knowledge of medicine, corporate accounting, and electronic devices, and of criminal psychologists and other types of experts. Policies need to be implemented immediately to provide training for more police experts.

by Makiko Tazaki (" South China Morning Post", February 23, 2000)

("Yomiuri Shimbun", February 23, 2000)

("Mainichi Shimbun", February 23, 2000)

NARITA, Chiba - Koji Takahashi, leader of the mummy-making Life Space cult, was arrested Tuesday alongside seven of his associates in Oarai, Ibaraki Prefecture, on suspicion of letting a sick man die last year in a hotel here, police said.
Seven others included 31-year-old Kenji Kobayashi who is the eldest son of the dead man; his mother, Akiko, 61; and Takahashi's 38-year-old wife, Nobuko.
They are all members of a Life Space affiliate Shakty Pat Guru Foundation (SPGF).
The mummified body of the alleged victim, Shinichi Kobayashi, 66, was found lying in a Narita hotel last November.
All the arrested people are denying the charge and insisting that Shinichi was alive until his body was sent for autopsy by police.
"They are being detained illegally by police, there is absolutely no reason to arrest them," a SPGF spokesperson said. "Takahashi shouldn't be moved because he suffers from terminal cancer of the tongue, but our plea to police not to move him fell on deaf ears."
It is believed that on July 2, 1999, Kobayashi had taken Shinichi from a hospital in Hyogo's Itami, where he was recovering from a brain hemorrhage, and transferred him to the Narita hotel under the instructions of Takahashi, 61.
In the hotel room, Takahashi reportedly patted ailing Shinichi's head to deliver his alleged healing power in what he called "Shakty Pat" therapy. A record kept by the SPGF on Shinichi's condition stated that he "stopped breathing" the very next day.
But when police raided the hotel room and recovered Shinichi's mummified body, Takahashi and others insisted that the victim was still alive, according to their "well-established theory," or teisetsu in Japanese.
Police believe that Shinichi died as a result of not receiving proper medical care, and charged the eight with abandonment by caregivers, resulting in death.
"Kobayashi and Akiko neglected their duty as relatives to provide care for Shinichi, and Takahashi was the chief reason behind their action," Hisaitsu Sasaki, head of Chiba Prefectural Police's criminal investigation section, said.
Investigators admitted that it took more than four months to make the arrest since the discovery of the body, because they found it difficult to make charges against Takahashi and SPGF members, who are seemingly convinced that Shinichi's mummified body was alive and well.
Last month, Kobayashi and several members of the SPGF flew to the United States, saying that they will ask INTERPOL, an international organization which coordinates international police cooperation, to stop the Narita police station's unfair investigation on them since the discovery of the body.
INTERPOL's headquarters is located in Lyon, France, and it does not conduct its own investigations.
Yasumasa Shimomura, a professor emeritus of criminal jurisprudence at Chuo University, expects a difficult road ahead for authorities.
"Investigators are arguing that the SPGF members should have realized that the victim would die if he was left without care," Shimomura said. "But they all apparently believed they were treating Shinichi, and thus had no criminal intention at all. The arrests are only the starting point of the investigation to criminally charge them."     

(Reuters, February 22, 2000)

(Kyodo News Service, February 22, 2000)

("Asahi Shimbun", February 22, 2000)

Police this morning arrested the former leader of Life Space, a group that conducts self-enlightenment seminars, and six others in connection with the death of a man whose mummified body was found last fall at a Narita hotel, officials said.
Chiba prefectural police arrested Koji Takahashi, 61, at a hotel in Oarai, Ibaraki Prefecture, on suspicion of failing to take adequate care of the 66-year-old man, who was suffering from cerebral hemorrhage, resulting in his death.
The mummified body of Shinichi Kobayashi, an unemployed man in Kawanishi, Hyogo Prefecture, was found Nov. 11, about four months after his death.
Takahashi and Kobayashi's family members have maintained that Kobayashi had been receiving medical treatment from Takahashi at the hotel.
Using the so-called Shakty Pat treatment, the cult leader gave the patient continuous pats on his head.
Kobayashi's family paid 8 million yen to the Shakty Pat Guru Foundation (SPGF), a group affiliated with Life Space, for the treatment, investigation sources said.
Kobayashi had been hospitalized in Itami, Hyogo Prefecture, after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage, the sources said.
Following Takahashi's advice, Kobayashi's son Kenji, who was among those arrested, and other family members removed Kobayashi from the hospital on July 2, 1999, and transported him to the hotel in Narita.
Kobayashi died soon after arriving at the Narita hotel, but his body was left in the room for about four months until discovered by police, the sources said.
At the time of discovery, Takahashi and the other cult members insisted that Kobayashi was still alive and undergoing treatment.
Police searched SPGF-related facilities in Tokyo and Nagoya on Nov. 24 in connection with the suspected abandonment of Kobayashi's body.
Takahashi, a licensed tax accountant, established Life Space in 1983. The group has hosted a number of self-enlightenment seminars, with each participant paying several tens of thousands of yen to participate, the sources said.

(Associated Press, February 21, 2000)

TOKYO (AP) -- Police on Tuesday arrested the leader of a religious cult that had kept a mummified corpse in an airport hotel northeast of Tokyo for several months.
Koji Takahashi, 61, leader of the Life Space cult, was taken into custody by police in Chiba prefecture (state), said police spokesman Makoto Arai.
The arrest comes after police in November found a partially mummified body in a Chiba hotel room near Tokyo's Narita international airport, with the dead man's wife and son keeping vigil.
Takahashi, a silver-bearded former tax accountant, told reporters later that the man, Shinichi Kobayashi, was undergoing treatment for an illness and required ``complete rest.''
Takahashi, along with the dead man's wife and son, were arrested on charges of not seeking proper medical care for Kobayashi, who had been receiving treatment for a stroke.
At its peak, Life Space is said to have drawn nearly 10,000 people to seminars on enlightenment, but that number has dropped to around 150, the media reported.
Japan in recent years has seen growing numbers of new religious groups and occult movements. Experts are divided over the reasons, but many believe the postwar stress on material wealth has left people with a need for spiritual fulfillment.
Under a recently enacted special law, Japanese authorities placed the doomsday cult behind the 1995 fatal gassing on the Tokyo subways under strict surveillance for up to three years because of fears the group is reviving. That attack killed 12 people and sickened thousands.

("Mainichi Shimbun", January 29, 2000)

Mummy-making cult Life Space used its child members to "nurse" the mummified body of a man the cult claimed was undergoing treatment, the Mainichi has learned.
The children, a boy and eight girls aged 9 to 17, were found during raids on the facilities of Shakty Pat Guru Foundation (SPGF), following the discovery of the mummy of a 61-year-old man at a hotel room in Narita in November last year.
While the guru of the cult, former accountant Koji Takahashi, "treated" the body by allegedly sending it his spiritual power, the eight girls were reportedly taken from the facilities to the Narita hotel to tend the mummy from the summer of 1999 until the body's discovery in mid-November.
"The girls told us that they wiped the mummy clean and changed the linen to nurse the body," said an official of the Tokyo care home where the children were taken following the discovery of the body.
"They also said the nursing was a part of their training."
It is unclear whether the children were aware that they were actually "nursing" a corpse, the official says.
Their parents are members of the self-enlightenment-group-turned-cult, and the children have been put under care of the metropolitan children's home in Shinjuku-ku since the raids.
The children shared the cult's facilities with a number of adult members of the cult, but their parents were not with them, the official said.
All nine children had not attended school since they started living in the SPGF facilities.
This is despite the fact that five of them were legally required to attend school.
Some of them were described as being two to three years behind in their education compared to average children of their ages.
The official described the environment they were raised in as "extremely inappropriate." "It is true that the cult did not allow them to attend school. We are checking whether their peculiar experiences have left any scars on their personalities," the official said.
Three of the nine children were taken in by their relatives and left the home as of Thursday.
On Monday, SPGF members visited the care home and demanded the return of the children to its facilities.
They argued that they do not trust the public education system and that the children are better off with their own education methods.